The Q400 seems to be getting a bit of a poor rep. hereabouts. Bless it. It really isn't as bad as it sounds.
It's no worse than the 146 in terms of automatics. Both have a two axis autopilot and no auto throttle. In fact the Q400 A/P is a lot more accurate than the 146 (having to set the alt 100 feet low because it climbed when it accelerated - no pressure error correction!).
Handling wise. Ok you get a bit of instability due to the straight wing, but that isn't exclusive to the Dash is it? It's a bit sensitive in pitch but so is the E195. I actually enjoyed hand flying it more than I do the 195.
Lots of redundancy - It's got 4 hydraulic sytems!
Reliability - Well it's got better! Most snags are computer derived. Turn it off and on again and 90% of the time you've fixed it.
It does have it's foibles but name an aeroplane that hasn't.
Bottom line - If I didn't think it was safe I wouldn't have flown it for two years. No doubt.